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August, 1877.)
THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
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and gentle in their disposition that they approximate to rational creatures. Some of them take up their drivers when fallen in battle, and carry them off in safety from the field. Others, when their masters have sought refuge between their forelegs, have fought in their defence and saved their lives. If in a fit of anger they kill either the man who feeds or the man who trains them, they pine so much for their loss that they refuse to take food, and sometimes die of hunger. 1 They copulate like horses, and the female
oplate lile horses and the female casts her calf chiefly in spring. It is the season for the male, when he is in heat and becomes ferocious. At this time he discharges a fatty substance through an orifice near the temples. It is also the season for the females, when the corresponding passage opens. 18 They go with young for a period which varies from sixteen to eighteen months. The dam suckles her calf for six years. Most of them live as long as men who attain extreme longevity, and some live over two hundred years. They are liable to many distempers, and are not easily cured. 15 The
remedy for diseases of the eye is to wash it with cows' milk. For most of their other diseases draughts of black wine are administered to them. For the core of their wounds they are made to swallow butter, for this draws out iron. Their sores are fomented with swine's flesh.
Fragm XXXVIII. Alian, Hist. Anim. XIII. 7. Of the diseases of Elephants. (Cf. Fragm. XXXVI. 15 and XXXVII. 15.) The Indians cure the wounds of the elephants which they catch, in the manner following: - They treat them in the way in which, as good old Homer tells us, Patroklos treated the wound of Eurypylos,-they toment them with lukewarm water. After this they rub them over with butter, and if they are deep allay the inflammation by applying and inserting pieces of pork, hot but still retaining the blood. They cure ophthalmia with cows' milk, which is first used as a fomentation for the eye, and is then injected into it. The animals open their eyelids, and finding they can see better are delighted, and are sensible of the benefit like human beings. In proportion as
slain in battle and carried them away for burial; others have covered them, when lying on theground, with a shield; and others have borne the brunt of battle in their defence when fallen. There was one even that died of remorse and despair because it had killed its rider in a fit of rage. 11 [I have nyself actually seen an elephant playing on cymbals, while other elephants were dancing to his strains : a cymbal had been attached to each foreleg of the performer, and a third to what is called his trunk, and while he beat in turn the cymbal on his trunk he beat in proper time those on his two legs. The dancing elephants all the while kept dancing in a circle, and as they raised and curved their forelegs in turn they too moved in proper time, following as the musician led.
1. The elephant, like the bull and the horse, engenders in spring, when the females emit breath through the spiracles beside their temples, which open at that season. 18 The period of gestation is at shortest sixteen months, and never exceeds eighteen. The birth is single, as in the case of the mare, and is suckled till it reaches its eighth year. 15 The elephants that live longest attain an age of two hundred years, but many of them die prematurely of disease. If they die of sheer old age, however, the term of life is what has been I See Iliad, bk. XI. 845.
“The modern mode of catching and training elephants, with all its ingenious contrivances may be learned from
stated. 15 Diseases of their eyes are cured by pouring cows' milk into them, and other distempers by administering, draughts of black wine; while their wounds are cured by the application of roasted pork. Such are the remedies used by the Indians.
[Fragm. XXXVII. B.] Ælian, Hist. Anim. XII. 44.
Of Elephants. (Cf. Fragm. XXXVI. 9-10 and XXXVII. 9-10
init. c. XIV.). In India an elephant if caught when full-grown is difficult to tame, and longing for freedom thirsts for blood. Should it be bound in chains, this exasperates it still more, and it will not submit to a master. The Indians, however, coax it with food, and seek to pacify it with various things for which it has a liking, their aim being to fill its stomach and to soothe its temper. But it is still angry with them, and takes no notice of them. To what device do they then resort ? They sing to it their native melodies, and soothe it with the music of an instrument in common use which has four strings and is called a skindapsos. The creature now pricks up its ears, yields to the soothing strain, and its anger sabsides. Then, though there is an occasional outburst of its suppressed passion, it gradually turns its eye to its food. It is then freed from its bonds, but does not seek to escape, being enthralled with the music. It even takes food eagerly, and, like a luxurious guest rivetted to the festive board, has no wish to go, from its love of the music. Arrian almost as exactly as from the account of the modern practice in the 'Asiatic Researches.'" (vol. III. p. 229.) - Elphinstone's History of India, p. 242.
